Brave
by Katie Ann
Summary: [TP] She was the cause of the pain but she was not meant to be the cure. That task would fall to another.


_Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last story. I'm new to writing for the Zelda realm, and I appreciate everyone's advice and comments--they make my day! ;)_

_This story was inspired by a poem I read years and years ago called "Penelope" by Dorothy Parker, Penelope being the name of Odysseus's wife in Homer's The Odyssey. The poem is very short, but very poignant, and I thought about it a lot as I played Twilight Princess. Please enjoy, and review if you can!_

-----------------------------------

The rain drove into the castle windows with an anger that Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, had never before seen. Whether twilight or not, the darkness that enveloped the tower seemed to cloud the hard rainfall, making Zelda wonder whether or not she was even hearing, feeling, the rain or merely some illusion of water, misery, and lament that cascaded down the glass pane like tiny fragments of something once great, but now lost.

Zelda hated the darkness, she hated the twilight, and she hated the rain. The rain which mocked her, scorned her, scoffed at her; with its independence and affinity for freedom, the rain could go where she could not and the rain could cure what she could never even touch.

The rain appeared to soften the world around the castle, revealing and hiding things that only the princess herself cared to think about. She could see nature relishing in the rain's attention. She could see the stone remnants of the castle turn livid with the crash of showers. She could see the people scurrying from the darkness, the coldness, the increasing unease that plagued her kingdom and made her heart yearn for tears.

She could do nothing but wait. She was a prisoner within her own castle, and this confinement made her chest heavy with grief. It was not enough that she had been forced to surrender her castle, her kingdom, her people to the manifestation of vice, forced to surrender that which she had vowed upon her birth to forever protect, life and time be damned.

She could only sit in her room as her entire world slowly dissipated in the torrid rainfall, waiting for the next moment that the Twili Midna and her Chosen Hero would return and bear her good tidings in the kingdom of Hyrule.

The Chosen Hero and the Twili Midna were burdened and yet liberated to search each and every province, each and every wisp of hope, each and every rumor of rising revolution. They felt the wind and smelled the air and knew that they all worked together to rid the land of malevolence. They listened to the birds sing tales of fortitude and strength, drawing upon the choruses to fill their hearts with faith and bring them that much closer to success. They could journey to temples forgotten by all save time itself, and discover the tools they needed in order to evoke the unfailing measures of righteousness. They could help people, ease suffering, and slowly but surely desecrate the stout foundations of the evil empire that Ganon and his minion Zant had shaped.

Zelda envied them that. She wanted to be out there with her people, suffering as they suffered, bleeding as they bled. She wanted to be tortured, raped, and killed if it could save one life, bring even the smallest chance for survival to even the lesser citizens. She wanted to be the one to cut down the evil that had barricaded itself inside her kingdom. She wanted, nay, needed to be the one to end the tyranny that had swept her lands and shattered each and every possible fortune that accompanied the greatest risk, but which delivered the greatest reward.

It was her duty as princess to be selfless, to be so unconditionally deficient of any arrogance or egotism that even her enemies named her altruistic. She had to give all that she had in order to ensure the survival of her people. She was like the tree in the fall, bestowing the land with her own leaves, her own spirit, in order to provide the soil that which it needed to thrive again in the next season.

But it was already winter now, and the last of her leaves had fallen, buried under the thick husk of solidified and perpetual rain. The rain needed only to freeze and harden before all of Hyrule would be lost to its cold, cruel blanket of fear.

Stillness had descended upon the land, but Zelda could do nothing to stop it. She was not free to save her people, or to aid the Chosen Hero and the Twili Midna. She could not even leave the room or else bring more destruction and disintegration to her already failing city. No matter the efforts of the Chosen Hero, all his heroic deeds would be for naught if Zelda only dared to step her foot outside her chamber door.

And so she waited, and worried, and grieved, and regretted, and lamented, and felt ashamed. She was the cause of the pain but she was not meant to be the cure. That task would fall to another. Her fate was to be the princess of Hyrule, locked away in the tower while another battled evil foes, confronted terrible dungeons, and endured every world pain possible before defying all odds and rising above the rubble of the castle as the victor of vice, the savior of the kingdom. She had to wait for another to save her and the kingdom and bear nothing but the terrible emotional and mental sufferings that came from being a woman and being powerless.

But she needed no title, no adjective, to force her to wait and worry and plan and know. She would survive the terrible ordeal; just as the tree survives the bitter winter and carries on to greet the spring flowers with warmth and kindness.

They would call him brave.


End file.
